


Tears in the mud

by all_4_feels



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), True Detective
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Child Loss, Crossover, Depression, Eventual Smut, Gun Violence, Injury, M/M, POV Alternating, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slash, Suicidal Thoughts, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29200122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_4_feels/pseuds/all_4_feels
Summary: Rustin "Rust" Cohle and Martin "Marty" Hart are Sheriff's Deputies and bickering partners in the little town of Rhodes in Scarlett Meadows, the State of Lemoyne. Then one day they receive a letter from the Police Department in Saint Denis, requesting their assistance with carrying out an unknown task.(Tags will be added along the way!)
Relationships: Maggie Hart/Martin "Marty" Hart (mentioned), Rustin "Rust" Cohle & Martin "Marty" Hart, Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Claire Cohle (mentioned), Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Javier Escuella (mentioned), Rustin "Rust" Cohle/Martin "Marty" Hart
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Another fresh start (?)

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to combine two of my absolute favorite fandoms, True Detective and Red Dead Redemption (and of course, since it's me, it had to be with slash xD). I was genuinely surprised to find ZERO existing crossovers between these two fandoms (please PLEASE let me know if you've found any, i NeEd ThEm)! I don't even know if I will continue with this story, but I had to get this backstory off my chest. I hope you guys enjoy it, and please let me know if you think that I should continue with this concept!

_I was born in Plainview, Rio Bravo, in southern New Austin. My father worked in an oil field - the biggest one in the whole state, or so the story goes - and my mother cooked, cleaned and washed the clothes for the workers alongside the other wifes. I don't remember much of that time, but I do remember spending the days running around the camp and helping my mom out with her chores, and the evenings sitting over the edge of the Plainview cliff, wiggling my tiny feet and watching the dusk settle over the vast, foreign land on the other side of the great, wide river below. Who would've known that years later I would be hunting down people from the same, impressive land._

_And of course, I do remember the liquor. At one point my pops got laid off his work due to his drinking. I don't remember the occasion exactly, but I do remember there being talk of some kind of an accident. Anyway, sometime after that, my mom walked out on us. One morning, we woke up, and she was just gone. I don't really blame her, not anymore. She didn't want to be dragged down along with him. I think I can forgive her for that now. Why she didn't take me with her, though, was a mystery to me. Perhaps she thought that I was too similar to my father, and would only serve to remind her of that no-good bastard._

_Instead of drinking himself to death, as everyone would have expected, my pops decided to pack up whatever little that we owned and take us all the way up to Grizzlies West, in Ambarino. There my father worked in a silver mine, until it was shut down. After that he did odd jobs in the dying little mining town called Colter, and sometimes helped out at a ranch nearby. We stayed first in Colter, and then at Cairn Lodge, by the Cairn Lake. I hated the cold, but I loved the silence, and the clear night sky, with its millions and millions of stars. The air is so pure up there. Pops learned how to hunt, and then he taught me, and pretty soon we were almost entirely self-sufficient._

_When I was older I moved back to New Austin - I wanted to get out of the cold, and my pops and I didn't get along that well, anyway. He saw it as me betraying him. I had my mind set on becoming a member of the law enforcement, and so I moved to Armadillo to be trained into a deputy under the watchful eye of the local sheriff. That's where I met Claire. We got married, shotgun-like, and soon we had our baby daughter, Sophia. The light of our lives, the apple of our eye. She was there, and then she wasn't. Scarlet Fever, burned her away at the bare age of two. I turned to the bottle, and soon Claire walked out on me, just like my mom had done to my pops._

_My boss decided that I needed a change of scenery. I suspect that he rather lacked the heart to fire me. The Police Department in Blackwater had requested assistance with identifying and catching Mexican criminals that sneaked over the border at Manteca Falls, as well as other thieves, murderers and general reprobates that kept terrorizing the fine, law-abiding folks of West Elizabeth. As the law couldn't officially set its foot in the rats' nest, Thieves' Landing, due to the town not being under the federal government jurisdiction, they needed someone, someone fresh and unknown, to infiltrate into its scheme and keep the officials well-informed of the comings and goings of its lawless dwellers. I figured that it was as good a place to die as any, and so I agreed._

_My cover name was Ewing Cairn, or "Colter", and I was good at my job. Efficient, and discreet. Killers, rapists, entire gangs of self-proclaimed "outlaws" fell to the waiting hands of the police just outside of Thieves' Landing, and nobody could connect these coincidences to a "simple hunter and bootlegger from the North". That was, until I met Javier Escuella. He was a Mexican bounty hunter, revolutionary... and a murderer. I had already informed him to the police, but he saw right through me. Not for the impostor that I was, though... but for the invert. We were both lonely men, hiding in worlds neither of us truly belonged in, but for a few feverish, dreamlike nights our lonelinesses cancelled each other out. He told me about the reasons he had fled his home country, and the corruption and mindless cruelty he had witnessed there, and as I have always been an excellent judge of character, I believed him. I taught him English, and he taught me Spanish. Then one day, when we were out riding together, the law finally arrived, unexpectedly. I tried to tell him that I had already tipped him off long before we got to know each other, but he wouldn't believe me. I told him that I was sorry. He cursed me and told me that I had no loyalty. Then he shot me and escaped the law. He was the second person to tell me that. I never saw him again._

_After I, to my own bitter disappointment, survived the shot that merely put a hole through my side and fractured some of my ribs, I was sent out to Rathskeller Fork in Gaptooth Ridge to heal and to "calm down". They never caught Escuella, at least as far as I heard, and they never learned of our "unnatural acts", but they couldn't take the risk of me being exposed after such an incident. Bullshit, I say. **I** could have taken the risk. It should have been my call. And anyway, it was kind of ironic of them to send me to a place like Rathskeller Fork. It was like from one nest of sin and vice to another. I spent my days there drinking and playing cards with travellers, outlaws and fallen women alike, making sure that they didn't commit anything **too** illegal._

_Though I don't quite know how or what, the Sheriff of Tumbleweed, Sam Freeman, apparently saw something promising in me nonetheless. He offered me a post as a deputy in the deserted little town, which I accepted, as I had grown bored cooped up within the four tall walls of Rathskeller Fork. I stayed for a couple of years, helping the Sheriff rid the area of gangs of criminals that terrorized its last few inhabitants, until I felt like it was time to move on. As a favor for my past services in Thieves' Landing, I was offered a comfortable desk job and a quaint little cottage in Blackwater, both of which I turned down. I said that I wanted a job somewhere even further east, preferably somewhere humid and verdant; I had had my share of chasing down backward, bickering gangs of outlaws across the blazing, empty desert and scrubbing out sand from my hair and between my toes and every single crevice in between. As it happened, the Sheriff in a small town close to Saint Denis was looking for a second Deputy, and thus, my path had led me to my current occupation - though as I first stepped down onto the crimson soil of my new home town and watched the hot wind blow up dust on the mostly deserted main street, I couldn't help but feel a little as though I had been played for a fool._

_My name is_

**"Rust."**

**" _Rust_."**

**" _Rustin_!"**

**"Quit scribbling in that ledger of yours! We gotta get onto the train!"**

_*sigh*_

"I'm coming, Marty."

_Rustin Spencer Cohle, and I am 33 years old. I work as a Sheriff's Deputy in the town of Rhodes, in the Scarlett Meadows region of the State of Lemoyne... and my partner, Martin Eric Hart, 35, is an idiot._


	2. A letter from a high place

"So... tell me about this _job_ ," Rust drawled at last as they sat on opposite benches on the midday train to Saint Denis, watching the lush green scenery go by. In First Class, no less. It was barely a couple of hours' ride from Rhodes, but the superior that had wrote to them from the Saint Denis Police Department had insisted that they board a train to the city at the earliest possible convenience, even going so far as to paying in advance for their tickets in First Class, and a hotel room at the "prestigious Bastille Saloon". It was, of course, completely ridiculous and totally unnecessary - not to mention, more than a little fishy - but they had received orders from their boss to get there immediately and find out what this fuss was about. There was a chain of command here, as Marty never failed to remind him, and so if they were told to do something or to go somewhere, no matter how dubious it might sound, they went - as simple as that. 'They must be _really_ desperate for our help,' he mused, an uncomfortable feeling nagging at the back of his skull at that thought. "Can you show me the letter?"

"Boss didn't give you the briefing, then," Marty asked from underneath his knit brows as he pushed his big hand into his dark brown vest, pulling out the white envelope from his breast pocket and holding it out to Rust, who accepted it. "Nah, didn't have time to stop by," Rust muttered as he inspected the letter. It was addressed to their boss, Sheriff Harmon Thomas, and it bore the official stamp of the Saint Denis Police Department. "Figured that you would let me in on the details." He chanced a quick glance back to the other man, then. Marty appeared irritated. "Yeah, well where have you been for the past couple of days? It would've been nice to go through this together instead of rushing straight into the train, you know."

"What I do in my free time is my business alone," Rust then replied quickly, too quickly. Quickly enough for them both to notice, surely. Marty appeared thrown off by the surprising contradiction of his widened eyes, startled expression, and his quiet, almost calm voice. For a moment they simply stared at each other, both of them holding their breaths as neither of them dared to break the silence between them, before finally Marty spoke up, raising his wide, meaty palms in a gesture of peace. "... O-of course, man. Jesus. I-I just meant-" The man then cut himself off abruptly, leaning forward and sniffing the air between them. Realization dawned upon those handsome southern features. "Have you been boozing again?" As soon as Rust opened his mouth to deny it, the man went on; "Because I know that you don't think much of my intelligence, but I can tell when you have. I can smell it on you."

A light, shocked blush spread itself onto Rust's high cheekbones, and he fumbled for something, anything, to shut the other man up. He knew that he was being childish, but he most definitely, most _desperately_ did _not_ want to continue this particular line of conversation. If he were to admit it, then it would inevitably lead to questions as to _why_ he had spent the last couple of days - or really every single spare hour within the past month - stone drunk, and-... No. That, he couldn't handle. Not right now.

The teasing grin and sardonic tone that Rust managed to summon up felt a little bit like victory, at least. "You been smelling me, have you?" This time it was Marty's turn to flush a frankly rather charming shade of beet red, mouth opening and closing like that of a fish on dry land, and pale blue eyes widening in mortification. "A-... Anyway," the man managed to choke out at last, clearing his throat and changing the subject for both of their benefit. Rust knew that Marty was attracted to him, could read it on his face plain as fucking day almost the second they met, but he would never endeavor to endanger another man's marriage or family like that. Besides, here people were less accepting of such behaviour than up in the north where nights got cold and lonely and women, not to mention folks in general, where few and far between. It could end really badly for both parties, and thus it was for the best to simply not bring it up. He could go without - had, for most of his life.

Rust was almost startled when Marty spoke again. "There wasn't much in the letter," the man said hoarsely, pointing to the item in question still clutched in Rust's long, bony fingers. "The message just said that we gotta get over there and help them out with _something_. Wouldn't even tell us what the job _is_ , or how long it's gonna take, just that boss gotta send two of his men over there and that we'll be treated proper."

Well... that did sound dubious if anything. Finally tearing his eyes off the other man, Rust opened the envelope and pulled out the letter, his gaze immediately jumping to scan across the lines of text. The message was indeed very brief and suspiciously vague.

Except...

"And...," Marty continued at the exact moment that his eyes landed upon the inked, hand-written words on the pure white paper. "They asked for _you_ personally."

Rust's heart might have skipped a beat or two.

With his mouth gone inexplicably dry, he re-read the line that bore his own name for a couple of times before dropping his gaze to the bottom of the letter.

  
Signed by Benjamin Lambert, Chief of Police.

  
Feeling suddenly hard to breathe, he slowly raised his eyes from the paper to Marty's curious, if a little irritated, quizzical face. "Now, why would the Chief of Police in Saint Denis ask for you personally," the man asked after a beat, leaning forward to slip the letter from between his slightly trembling fingers. "Hell, you've been here for all five minutes." If it hadn't been so beneath the dignity of two grown, adult men, he could've said that Marty looked almost... jealous. But there was also something else. Apprehension, and... concern. For _him_.

Staring at the now creased letter in Marty's big, clumsy hands, Rust leaned back in the plush, dark green bench, looking then out of the window to the glimmering Lannahechee River as they pulled into the city. "I have no idea," he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same, Rust... Same. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this story, so if you're by any chance reading this fic, please know that this'll be our mutual adventure together! Let's call it an experiment, eh :D
> 
> Thank you for reading and please tell me what you think of this kick-off!


	3. A risky mission

The short walk from the Police Headquarters to their hotel at the corner of Frontier Street and Saint Nicolas Street that afternoon was spent in uneasy silence. Rust, with his annoyingly long, lean legs, walked several steps ahead of Marty the entire way to the lavish establishment. Which was out of character, because usually he was cursing Cohle's style of walking as though in slow-motion, as though the man possessed all the time in the fucking world.

God knew what was going through that complicated mind of his - Marty's own thoughts sure were a mess right now.

As soon as they made it through the doors of the saloon, Marty went on to collect their keys from the bartender, paying a worried glance to the back of his partner that rushed straight through the busy parlour and up the flights of stairs to the sleeping quarters. By the time he himself made his way upstairs, Rust was already waiting anxiously for him in front of the door to their room. How the man had guessed exactly which room would be theirs, he had no idea. "Well... here we are," he muttered as he pushed the key into the keyhole, turning it and admitting them into the room.

When in the room Rust dropped immediately down onto one of the two single beds, pulling out his pencil and diary - or "ledger", as Marty himself called it - and starting to scribble into it with speed that made him feel dizzy even just from watching. So instead he took in the fancy decor of the room. He had been in Saint Denis before, of course, but never in this particular establishment, and certainly not anywhere this classy. It made him feel a little envious of these city cops who got to see and hang out in all these nice places. He wouldn't exchange the sunrise and the sound of birds chirping over a grassy hill down in Rhodes for the world, though.

"... So," Marty spoke up at last tentatively, finally sitting down onto the other bed across from Rust. The plush mattress dipped low underneath the weight of him. Rust had paused with his scribbling, slowly looking up to him with his eyebrow arched in a quizzical manner. "... So?" Marty had the sudden, inexplicable urge to reach out and strangle the man. He didn't act on it, though, which was a good thing, too. He wasn't entirely positive that he would be the one to come out on top in that particular scrape. With anyone else, yes... but not with him. "... _So_ ," he sighed pointedly, raking exasperatedly his sweaty fingers through the short strands of his honey-colored hair. "What do you reckon?" Rust stared at him for a moment with an unreadable expression before replying. "Reckon you should get to bed early today and take the first train back tomorrow... with my letter of resignation. I'm gonna do this by myself," the man muttered lowly, dropping then his shadowy gaze back to the text-filled notebook in his lap.

It wasn't often that Marty Hart was rendered speechless. "... _What_? Rust-... Jesus!... Y-you don't get to drop a bomb like that!" As it was, he jumped up onto his feet, scratching his own scalp nearly to the point of baldness as he paced around the room, eyes widened from the shock. He could feel his face turning hot and red with anger, equally startled and infuriated by the other's audacious words. His brain was like a fuse, burning off from both ends, pressure building until the aggressive outburst was inevitable; "You don't get to decide whether I'm on this job or not! You gotta remember who's the Senior Deputy here!"

Fortunately Rust lifted his eyes up from his ledger again, before Marty tore the damn thing off his hands. The younger man's tone wasn't any less confrontational, though. "Well, what do you want from me, Marty? You have a wife and two kids, I'm not gonna let you risk your life for something that's supposed to be my job alone!" Marty was fuming. "What does that even _mean_ ," he bellowed, stepping towards the other man before throwing his hands up in the air in a deliberately dramatic expression of futility. "So, it's someone that your mom might've known. So what? Doesn't mean you gotta catch him all by yourself!" Rust glared up to him with anger. The man's voice sounded genuinely upset. "Yeah, but it's gonna be fucking dangerous, Marty! We're talking about one of the largest, most spread-out gangs in America! This man is one of their leaders, and he's a violent killer! He and his men have killed dozens, maybe hundreds of people!"

  
Oh, the sheer nerve on this guy. How dare he throw him in the face with such no-brainers and lecture him about the dangers of their occupation?!

  
"Oh, fuck you, Cohle! Fuck you with that condescending bullshit! I'm a grown-ass man and a member of the law enforcement, same as you! I've had my fair share of shootouts and risky pursuits, even if I was no underworld infiltrator or marchland gunslinger! I don't know in what kind of snake pit of liars and traitorous backstabbers you were brought up, but around here, if you're partners, if you're _friends_ , you're supposed to help each other!"

When Rust finally spoke up again, the man's tone sounded already much calmer, amused even. "I'm your friend, Hart?" Rust flashed him with a small, mischievous smirk. Marty snorted at that, his own anger and aggression subsiding rapidly. "We've been working together for almost a year. Of course you're my friend." Exchanging knowing, comradely looks that only friends could, they then both relaxed again, each into their own, quiet thoughts.

"... Suppose we gotta tell boss tomorrow that we ain't returning to our normal job for a while," Rust spoke again after a while, breaking the pensive silence in the room that was washed in the warm, yellowish glow of the early evening sun. "... Yeah," Marty murmured distractedly from by the tall, ornately framed windows, staring glassy-eyed out into the bustling street below. As he turned to give a glance to his partner, he found him just as he had left him, sitting hunched over on the thick, cross-stitched silk coverlet, engrossed in his diary once more. "Suppose we gotta."

* * *

**_January the 3rd, 1907_ **

_Found out my mom is incarcerated in Sisika Penitentiary. Serving a life sentence for her crimes with the Del Lobo Gang. They say she has agreed to deliver some information regarding one of their leaders, Ramón Cortez, but only if she gets to see me. I'm not quite sure what to think._

_They say they want to hand us the honor of bringing in Cortez - "a chance to pay back to the society for some of my mama's sins". The real reason is, of course, that they're too chickenshit to send some of their own men on such a dangerous mission. And they can't hire the Pinkertons, because of the way those buffoons screwed up with the Van der Linde Gang years back._

_So in a couple of days ~~I'm~~ we're going after Cortez._

_But not "to make a service to our society", and certainly not because of my mother._

_I have to fix my own fuck-up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen, we (may) have a plot! :D


End file.
